A Life in the Garden

August 5, 2024
Damrosch (The Four Season Farm Gardener’s Cookbook), a former Washington Post gardening columnist, provides a robust introduction to growing fruits, herbs, legumes, and vegetables. She recommends placing garden plots in places that get six hours of sun per day and details how to get the right pH level and nutrient balance in soil (adding pulverized limestone lowers acidity, and cottonseed meal boosts nitrogen levels). Damrosch’s organic approach urges readers to refrain from using pesticides; she explains that such “pests” as yellowjackets and moles actually tamp down insect populations that would otherwise overrun crops. The bulk of the book offers detailed instructions on growing beans, cucumbers, raspberries, and other edible plants. For instance, she recommends installing wire cylinders around tomato vines so they’ll climb upward and away from soilborne diseases, and she encourages covering lettuce plants with shade cloth to prevent them from growing into unwieldy stalks. The advice on working with nature, rather than striving to control it, is well observed, and Damrosch has an amusing habit of anthropomorphizing plants (“In a cold, wet spring... my basil will sulk outside the kitchen door, ‘palely loitering,’ as Keats would say”). This stands out in the crowded field of gardening primers.

August 1, 2024
This is a wonderfully informed how-to guide on nearly every aspect of backyard veggie growing, though it's cleverly disguised as simply a leisurely stroll through the garden, the amiable Damrosch having honed her narrative skills as cohost of the Learning Channel's Gardening Naturally for a decade and as author of the Cook's Garden column for the Washington Post for 14 years. Much of her information can be found elsewhere, but her informality sets a perfect tone with the new or reluctant gardener. And she resists preaching--for example, instead of taking a stand on tilling versus not tilling, she relates that her friend Ruth, tired of waiting for the man with the tractor to till her soil one season, simply sowed her seeds "among the previous year's debris," where they thrived. Point made, gently. Readers can expect solid, specific growing tips on tomatoes, salad greens, heartier greens, peas and beans, "earth" vegetables, onions, garden fruits, and herbs, along with especially good info on extending the growing season

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October 1, 2024

Longtime Maine farmer and home gardener Damrosch (The Garden Primer; The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook) shares her decades of experience growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs in this informative, personal, engaging work. It begins with her journey to becoming a vegetable gardener and the U.S. history of growing one's own food, then debunks barriers to gardening, such as lack of money, time, or knowledge. The book covers soil care, composting, and getting more from one's garden by intercropping and succession planting. Damrosch shares details on designing a garden, seeding, and growing transplants, plus the tools she finds most useful. She breaks down the garden year by season listing the tasks to be done in each, including growing food in cold frames or greenhouses during the winter. The book also talks about how to deal with creatures that attack garden plants as well as beneficial ones, followed by a section on weeds. It concludes with specifics for growing a wide range of vegetables, fruits, and herbs and suggests varieties Damrosch has had success with, plus advice for using them in cooking. VERDICT Damrosch's wealth of information and easy-to-understand, conversational writing style will appeal to vegetable gardeners of all experience levels.--Sue O'Brien

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